Leadership e-Bulletin: July 2013 Issue

Breakthrough Map

Many are wagering that bundled payment will help reduce healthcare costs and improve quality. A Leadership infographic details the research to date on the effectiveness of bundled payment and shares three risk strategies for providers that engage in this new payment approach.

Inspiring Collaborations

By Laura Ramos Hegwer

Methodist Le Bonheur Healthcare, in Memphis, Tenn., partners with the Congregational Health Network, a group of 500 churches and other faith-based organizations throughout the region to address the socially complex issues that drive residents to seek out emergency departments for routine care.

Their efforts are paying off: Residents served by the network have 20 percent fewer readmissions and half the crude mortality rate, compared with non-network patients. Their median time for readmission is 120 days less for all diagnosis-related groups, compared with the total population. And the health system has saved about $4 million a year, or about $8,000 per capita, in charity care write-offs.

Leader Profile

An interview with Donald Berwick, MD

Physicians,
nurses, and other clinicians are in prime positions to distinguish between the
elements of health care that benefit patients and those that are wasteful and
potentially dangerous, says Donald Berwick
MD, former CMS administrator and healthcare quality improvement expert.

“Just like hospitals
are being forced more and more to think about business models that are not
volume-based, so physicians have to think about their roles in the larger
system—teamwork, exchange of information, and how to be a leader in cost
reduction without harming patients,” Berwick says.

Growth Opportunities

By Darrell Pile

Two Houston-area hospitals used similar strategies to revive their declining diagnostic imaging businesses. Believing that their hospitals had a quality edge over the competition, they set out to turn the hospitals’ imaging departments back into providers-of-choice for patients. Strategies included close communication with local physicians’ offices on the availability of same-day appointments and quicker turnaround times on radiology results.

Victoria Terekhova, senior strategist for Enterprise Healthcare at KeyBank, discusses key challenges when developing long-term strategy in a rapidly changing industry, and the role the right banking partner can play in helping healthcare providers navigate the opportunities before them.